Red
by Tynesider
Summary: To Spyro, red represents everything good about dragons. OneShot.


In the distance a group of red dragons took to the skies, and Spyro snorted in disgust. Red dragons. Three syllables that put a vile taste in his mouth whenever he dared say them. Eight years old he may have been and his knowledge of the world severely limited, but he knew enough to hate red dragons. It was always the reds who came out best. The reds were the most skilled, the best fliers, the most intelligent. It didn't matter what a blue or a green or an orange achieved, it was all about reds. If a pink dragon wrote a fantastic essay or scored a winning goal nobody cared, but if it was a red their praises were sung until the sun went down. In the eyes of the non-reds it wasn't fair, but it was especially unfair in the eyes of the lone purple dragon in Artisans.

He watched a group of reds practice their flying from the safety of a hillside, hoping to shoot them down with his fierce glare. What was so special about the reds anyway? It was only a colour. What made them a better breed? Were they stronger? Were they smarter? Surely not, only one Elder was red, but if that was the case why was so much emphasis put on them? Spyro diverted his gaze to the grass below and sighed. Those questions were beyond the capabilities of an eight year-old, and not having answers made him sad. He looked at his scales and despised what he saw. He hated purple – it was a horrible colour. Purple was for girls, not rough-and-tumble boys like himself. Some of the other dragons had laughed at him for being purple, and because there were no other purple dragons the only people he could turn to were his teachers, and even then they were only around so much of the time. Purple was a silly colour for a dragon: when he coloured in pictures he never used a purple crayon. In fact, he wasn't sure purple crayons even existed. No, instead he used green or orange or blue or yellow or even red. At least red looked good on a dragon.

"I want to be red," he said, looking up at the dragons above, who were firing flames at one another in a bizarre ritual the older dragons called 'sparring'. Maybe that was what the reds were good at – maybe they were good fighters. In the back of his mind he remembered teachers telling him about the nasties that lay beyond the Dragon Realms: armadillos, cheetahs, fauns and all manner of monstrosities. Maybe the reds were needed to keep them out, to keep dragonkind pure. Maybe that was it, but that wasn't what attracted yet repulsed him about the reds. No, what generated mixed emotions in his belly was the adult dragon stood not too far away from him on the grass, observing the action above too but with a much more cautious eye. With a flick of his hand he signalled for them to land and his students obeyed, landing centimetres from him with a toned skill that only came from training with the best.

"That was excellent," the adult said, nodding respectfully to the posse, "I cannot fault your skills whatever. Absolutely magnificent from all of you," he turned to one of the assembled group, the reddest dragon of the bunch, "Especially you, Bennett, you're up there with the best if you aren't the best already."

The adult's words made Spyro's eyes ignite. Praise. Raw praise, honest and heartfelt, and it was only ever rolled out for the reds. The best he had received was a patronising 'very good'. No matter what he did or how hard he worked on it, the outcome was always very good. Not excellent, not outstanding, not 'absolutely magnificent', always very good. Hearing those words brought him to his feet. He had had enough.

He stomped across Artisans with claws that tore the earth beneath him, his head low and his brow slanted to turn his eyes to steel. It was time to do something about this red problem, and in his mad, mindless eyes there was only one thing he could do. He marched on one of the many storehouses, a type of building that was off limits to the children of Artisans, and made his way inside. Most of the storehouses acted as a home to food supplies and records of each resident, but the one Spyro was in contained building materials. Wood, metal, tools and, most crucially, paint. He slowly picked his way over to the many shelves of paint tins and examined them. Every colour he could imagine was here, from the obvious to the completely obscure. He had never heard of aquamarine or viridian, but it wasn't such colours he was looking for. What he was looking for was located on the second shelf and labelled 'Brilliant Red'. With trembling hands he lifted the heavy tin down, setting it at his side. For a moment he was plagued by doubt, but any fears were quashed as he levered the lid off the tin, revealing the glossy paint within. With a grunt and a heave he raised the tin over his head and began to tip it towards him. This was it. No more jibes about being purple, no more patronising comments from teachers. He was going to join the elite band of dragons and win all the praise he desired because of it. He felt the first drop of paint splatter against his forehead and a giddy feeling swelled in his stomach. Time to join the leaders of the pack.

"Spyro!" he heard a voice shout, a voice that belonged to Tomas. Tomas, the Elder he had come to regard as his best friend. His arms jerked in shock, and that was enough to send the litres of paint in the tin tumbling over his body. Head, neck, wings, torso and all, dyed the desirable colour as Tomas entered the storehouse. "Spyro?" he said again, "Are you here? I saw you running off and I wondered..." he stopped as he saw the body of a small dragon, wrapped in a thick coat of red paint with an empty tin lying at his side. The Elder blinked a few times and pressed his claw into his cheek to test the reality of the event, but once the verdict came back positive he spoke again. "Spyro," he said, his voice sterner now, "What are you doing in here? There's a reason we don't let you play in here and I think you've found out why."

Spyro turned to face Tomas and opened his eyes, dribbles of paint falling down his eyelids.

"I...I did this to myself," Spyro whispered, feeling hurt building inside of him. This caught Tomas off-guard, and when he spoke again his voice had become decidedly friendlier.

"You poured a tin of paint over yourself?"

"Yes," Spyro nodded, feeling hot tears form in his eyes.

"Well why did you do that?"

"Because I want to be red!" Spyro wailed, and with that he started to cry.

Tomas watched the younger dragon weep for a few moments, then stepped forward and scooped him into his arms. In his time as Elder he had dealt with his fair share of crying children, but never had their tears stemmed from an event such as this. He was confused and upset, clearly missing something that Spyro knew and unable to soothe him as a result. He had to get to the bottom of this, but a storeroom was no place to conduct such business.

Spyro cried throughout the journey. Across the grasslands, shielded by Tomas' arms to save him any embarrassment, past the portals and into the hut he called home he wept. He didn't stop even as Tomas attempted to remove the worst of the paint from him with old newspaper, before giving up and scraping off the thick layer of gloss with his hands. He only ceased when the hot water of the bath caressed his scales, and Tomas seized the newfound silence as an opportunity.

"There," he said, slowly scraping away more paint with a sponge, "Are you better now?"

Spyro shook his head.

"Alright," Tomas nodded, but the concern in his eyes told Spyro he wasn't giving up that easily. "So why did you pour red paint on yourself?"

Spyro remained tight-lipped, but Tomas wasn't deterred. He reached across the bathroom, grabbed a yellow object and dropped it into the tub. Spyro looked at it: a rubber duck, and also a very good bribe.

"Would you pour yellow paint on yourself instead of red?" Tomas asked idly, as if the colour of the duck had reminded him of something. Spyro shook his head but still refused to talk.

"Blue?"

A shake of the head.

"Green?"

Another shake.

"So why red?"

"Because reds have everything," Spyro said suddenly. Tomas raised his brow in confusion, but it was a breakthrough nonetheless.

"Reds? As in red dragons?"

"Yeah."

"So you poured that tin of paint on yourself because you wanted to be a red dragon?"

"Yeah."

"But why? Red's not a very good colour, it's certainly not as good as purple..."

"Red is better!" Spyro shouted indignantly, splashing Tomas with a furious fling of his hand, "Red is better than every other colour in the world!"

"Why do you think that?" Tomas asked, genuine worry slipping into his voice.

"Because red dragons get all the good stuff!"

"That's not true, red dragons are treated no differently to anyone else..."

"That's wrong! Red dragons get told they're really good all the time. I never get told that I'm really good, but they always do."

"Spyro, that's nonsense. Nobody likes red dragons more than other dragons."

"Then why do they get to do all the good stuff?"

"That's also not true. I'm an Elder and I'm blue. As a matter of fact, there's only one red Elder."

"But all the best fliers are red and all the best fighters are red..." he felt tears well up in his eyes again. Tomas knelt down so that he was level with the crying youth and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Look Spyro, I think this isn't really a problem with reds getting better treatment than everyone else, but more of a problem with you not being red. Do you not like being purple?"

"No," Spyro said tearfully.

"That's what I was thinking," Tomas whispered, washing away another blotch of red from his body, "Look Spyro, I know purple isn't the best colour in the world but trust me, it's a very very special colour and you should be pleased to be it."  
"Then why am I not?"

"Because you don't know it's special," Tomas said, adopting a fatherly tone, "There are hundreds of red dragons out there, maybe even thousands. There are loads of blue dragons like me as well, and loads of green and yellow too, but there's only one of you," he pointed to Spyro's heart, "Only one purple dragon in the entire world. Why do you want to be the same as thousands of other dragons?"

"Because I don't like being different."

"Spyro," Tomas sighed, "There's nothing wrong with being different, and those who say there is are just silly. In fact, don't children hate copycats?"

"Yeah."

"Well if you're trying to copy the red dragons then they'll just think you're a copycat."

So far every other message had failed, but as Tomas dragged his classmates into the equation the message finally hit home. Slowly he began to nod. A confident nod, not the submissive bow of the emotionally unstable. Tomas saw this and smiled.

"So do you still want to be red?"

"No."  
"Do you want to be purple?"

"Yes."

Tomas breathed a sigh of relief.

"That's good," he smiled, "And do you feel better now?"

"Yeah," Spyro smiled. His grin brought a relieved look to Tomas' face.

"Excellent!" he said, wringing out the sponge in his reddened hands, "Well, it looks like all the nasty red paint's gone now. Now how about a glass of milk and a story?"

"Yeah!" Spyro cheered, splashing the water again and filling Tomas' face with dirty water.

"I'll take that as a yes," he laughed, wiping his face clean, "I'll just get a towel so we can get you dried off."

Spyro watched Tomas leave, then stared down into the water. All he could see was a layer of red, shining in places where it had mixed with soap to form a greasy film. It was a pretty colour, no doubt about it, but the purple on his scales was his. Nobody else's, just his. He was no copycat, he was unique. Red was a common colour, the colour of many. Too many. Spyro didn't need red, it had coloured more dragons than it had needed to, and to show he didn't need it he did the only thing he could do. He reached under the water and pulled the plug.

* * *

**Back again. :)**

**This is a weird idea I had while listening to, strangely enough, a song called Red by the brilliant Elbow. This turned out to be much darker than I'd intended it to be so I had to listen to 'That's the Way (I Like It)' by KC and the Sunshine Band in order to neutralise the situation. :D  
**

**Review if you wish. I'm always keen to hear feedback.  
**


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